Westchester Career Guide

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Freelancing In A Bad Economy? You Bet!

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If you are thinking of freelancing as a career, the time to take advantage is right now. Anticipate a layoff (if it is not too late already) and get your feet wet in what could actually be a promising career move. The economy is only expected to get worse for another year or more before it gets better so having a freelance career to fall back on may save you in the end.

With the economy turning south and massive layoffs that seem only to get worse in the future, it’s easy to think that freelancers fall under the same fate. This actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Here are the reasons:

Freelancers are not affected by downsizing

As companies experience decreases in revenue and, ultimately, losses they have to cut expenses. Jobs are usually the first to go. The reason being that there are overhead costs of having an employee such as benefits, insurance and of course salaries. These expenses eventually outweigh the value of an employee’s output and results in a layoff.

This has little affect on freelancers since they work independently. Companies or businesses that use freelancers have no overhead costs from hiring or retaining freelancers, only costs related to the work involved are expensed. Freelancers are almost always essential to a functioning business and usually retained even during tough times.

A bad economy actually benefits freelancers more

Sure, companies use layoffs as a cost-cutting move. Did you know that some of those laid off are replaced with freelancers? Despite layoffs, some companies still need skilled laborers in those vacated positions in order to operate. Outsourcing becomes the solution since it greatly reduces the overhead of having employees.

More often than not outsourcing is done to companies and temp agencies but freelancers are also in the mix as well. The pool of available freelancers has grown steadily over the years and has increasingly become the solution for staffing needs of companies and small businesses.

Freelance fields aren’t affected (that much) by the economy

A weakened economy generally affects the retail and leisure/travel industries the hardest. Since spending in our economy decreases, nearly all other industries are affected as well but to a lesser extent. Despite the layoffs and impending recession, the economy is strong and those freelance writers, graphic designers, web developers, you name it. . . are still in need. Believe it or not.

Speaking from experience as a freelance web developer, I haven’t noticed a single dip in the number of projects available on job boards nor a dip in the amount of work I have lined up. This, of course, does not apply to everyone but I haven’t heard stories of freelancers going bankrupt recently. Availability of work appears to affect all other fields alike.

About the author: Johnny Spence has been a freelancer since 2003 and has not looked back since quitting the J-O-B for good back then. He encourages everyone else to jump on the boat and do the same and will not stop until all middle-management bosses are eliminated from the universe. http://www.rookiefreelancejobguide.com/

Courtesy: IdeaMarketers

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Tags:

downsizing, freelance career, Freelancing, Freelancing, massive layoffs, Outsourcing, Small Business, temp agencies

 

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